This application claims the priority of German Patent Document No. 101 17 651.1, filed Apr. 9, 2001, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a parking/parking-out system and method, particularly for compact city vehicles.
Compact city vehicles offer the possibility of utilizing parking areas which have not been accessible to passenger cars. A special advantage of a compact city vehicle with its short vehicle length is the possibility of parking the vehicle at the edge of the road transversely to the course of the road. The required width of such a transverse parking space is determined by the vehicle width plus the space required to open the side doors.
For parking a motor vehicle parallel to the road direction, various automatic parking aids have been devised to assist the vehicle driver to steer the vehicle into a parking space. These known systems automatically measure, by means of sensors, an available parking space and emit in a computer-aided manner maneuvering information for the vehicle driver (German Patent Document DE-A1-3844340).
It is an object of the invention to provide a parking/parking-out system and method for parking passenger cars along a straight-line into a parking space, making it possible for the vehicle driver to utilize parking areas whose small width does not permit a person to laterally exit from the parked vehicle.
According to the present invention, the vehicle is placed in front of, and aligned with, a parking space. After all vehicle occupants have exited, the vehicle can be maneuvered using a manually operated remote control rearwards or forwards into the parking space. The maneuvering according the invention using the remote control also takes place at a controlled parking speed in a visually determined manner. The steering system is locked for straight-line driving.
The solution according to the invention has the advantage that no costly sensors for analyzing the environment and no devices to aid steering are required. When a vehicle has the basic equipment of a computer-aided motor control, such as a computer-aided engine control and any other computer-aided control system of the vehicle, and a controllable parking brake, the parking system according to the invention can be easily integrated as an accessory module in the vehicle. The remote control can advantageously be integrated in a wireless locking system.
Because the present invention allows a vehicle to be parked in a small parking space, economic advantages can be achieved for parking of passenger cars in parking garages which takes place by a forward or rearward straight-line driving.
Because of better visual control outside a vehicle, the invention also has advantages when objects, such as a lifting platform or a trailer coupling device, must be approached precisely.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.